Oh noes!!! I lost my gay agenda!!!

1. I’ve been joking about that for years–demanding to know what kind of leather it’s made of, and how it’s trimmed.

   I believe the lesbian agenda is a bit different than the male-gay one: the male-gay one usually sports a glossy alligator finish in a deep shade of burgundy, whereas the lesbian agenda is finished in a mahogany brown, with a thin deep-purple stripe down the front cover. The embossed metal initials for gay-male agendas is generally of a gold tone, outlined in black, whereas lesbians either forego the initials or opt for a copper shade.

   Seriously, I’m a little behind on my blog-reading, but I’ve been told that the folks at HillBuzz have defended Prajean, and that Daniel Blatt had some cautions for the gay-marriage supporters over at Pajamas Media.

   I choose to look to Steve Schmidt–and maybe Michael Steele–for figuring how to keep things moving [gaily] forward in a way that won’t create a backlash.

2. Hey Cynthia,
   Thanks for the add! And for the record, MY gay agenda was not under the sofa either! Funny, that. Hope you keep doing your excellent work.

   1. 23eagle,

      Thank you! I will post when I find it!

      Cynthia

3. That’s because there IS no agenda. Just a specific set of public policy changes which must be adopted without deliberating them first.

   1. Dave M,

      Dude! I checked your blog — no posts in over two years! What’s up with that? Why, since your second sentence is right out of the playbook of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes marriage equality for gays, one would almost think you maintained it as a cover so you could go to sites that favor marriage equality and get your comments published while posing as gay. If one were of a suspicious frame of mind, that is.

      Lesbians and gays have been working for equal rights for almost 40 years, since June will be the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. That really seems like ample time.

      Cynthia

      Cynthia

4. My old blog was gay in the sense of “focused on lame, trivial subject matter, presented in an effete, if not effeminate manner”. It was kind of a last gasp before I altogether lost interest. I can see how that could come off as a cover for someone posing as gay, if one were of the paranoid frame of mind one may tend to fall into after wallowing in echo chambers full of bad faith assumptions.

   You are an adult with a blog, and you’ve enabled comments. If someone dosen’t say exactly what you wanted to hear, that dosen’t automatically make them a troll, a spy, or a jewbot from beyond the moon.

   I didn’t come here to rail against equality. I just think you’re old enough to start considering that people might sincerely have different opinions than yours. You’ve got some pretty good arguements for your positions, even if they are straight out of some playbook or another. But you constantly frame the issues not in terms of other people’s opinions being wrong, but of them not being actual opinions at all, merely hate crimes. Instead of sticking with “here’s why this is wrong”, you begin and end by assuming and asserting “These people are monsters”. This is tacky, and generally frowned upon in conservative circles.

   1. Dave M,

      I don’t think I have once used the term “hate crimes.” Also, I have indeed stuck with the “Here’s why this is wrong approach.” I do not derive my positions from anyone’s “playbook.” And I approve almost every comment that is submitted, since my readers are an extremely polite bunch, including those that take strong exception to something I’ve written.

      I also haven’t called anyone a monster, yet, that I recall. I’m aware that if I did, it would tend to make people hold their position tighter, along the lines of the fable about the sun, the wind and the traveler. I try to emulate the sun. However, I’m in a tricky position on that point because there really are some monstrous consequences to the opposition to equality for lesbians and gays. I will indeed be pointing them out and making my case. However, the whole reason I bother to try is that I see and have faith in the fundamental goodness and “do right” nature of my social conservative readers. I truly love these qualities in them. That is what I have my attention on and speak to most of the time when I write. But I’m only human, and if I get exasperated or lose my temper once in awhile, I think I deserve the slack when the my reaction is weighed against the enormity of the provocations.

      I hope you will seek as much for the good in me at least as much as I focus on the good in social conservatives in general and you and my other readers in particular.

      Cynthia

5. OK, I think I can probably be a helpful online acquaintance to you, although probably not tonight. You really ought to learn to watch your assumptions, and people who want people on the internet to like them SUCK at helping people develop that ability. So, that makes me kind of gifted, I guess.

   I usually don’t bother saying anything to someone I haven’t seen the good in, but I’m way better at pointing out flaws, and, since I save charm and tact for the fleshworld, where they count for something, I play to my strengths in this venue.

   You’re being EXTREMELY obtuse and concrete. You didn’t literally use the word “monster”, but every post about the conservative position on Sullivan’s Hobbyhorse assumes that the _intent_ behind the position is to deprive people of rights (not a difference of opinion as to what constitutes rights, or anything like that). You don’t fail to attempt to make real arguments, but you say people “oppose marriage equality” when it seems fairly unlikely that that is how they would charicterize their position. There’s a reason why this kind of thing (equating opposition to a piece of legislation as “anti-immigrant”, “anti-minority”, “anti-choice”, etc.) is largely confined to people arguing for liberal positions; It’s the kind of asinine adolescent behavior that is strongly tends to go along with those positions.

   1. Dave M,

      What you put your attention on grows stronger. So, rather than having a conversation where we are pointing out one another’s flaws, why not see if we can focus on the good and start from whatever common ground we find?

      Do not conflate me with Andrew Sullivan. I have no idea what he thinks because I do not read his work.

      I find your third paragraph incoherent, so I’m having a hard time responding to it.

      However, it is entirely fair to characterize opponents of gay marriage as being opposed to marriage equality, since that is the lesbian and gay experience of their position. Every illegal immigrant has MORE civil rights than I do the second their bottoms are one micron over the border — they have the right to marry.

      I’ve read that to approximate the rights conferred by marriage, lesbians and gays have to make contracts covering over 1300 situations. Regarding that, remember that under the U.S. Constitution, some rights are federal and some are particular to the states. Within the states, some counties provide more civil rights than others. This means that even if we make those contracts, they do NOT have to be honored depending on where we may travel or move within a county, a state or the U.S. This means that it is NOT POSSIBLE to create contracts that are the equivalent of marriage.

      For example, I could not move from the county in Maryland where my late life partner and I had equal protection for access to public accommodations (i.e., restaurants, stores, theatres, etc.), employment and housing, to live in the county where my parents lived and where I was raised until Maryland passed a law protecting those rights state-wide. This law was only passed because the governor at the time, Parris Glendening, had a passion to make it happen to honor his gay brother who had died of AIDS.

      I had to pay attention to the facts that durable medical powers-of-attorney (POA) are governed by state laws and how those contracts are written varies from state to state. One state does not have to honor the medical power-of-attorney of another state. In addition, there are no criminal or civil penalties spelled out for violating the right to having your medical agent use your medical POA to make the decisions you want made when you are unable to make them yourself. When I took my late life partner to the hospital, I had to have at least two copies of my medical for her — one for the emergency room, and one for when she was admitted. The ER staff would give me grief over whether the copy was an original and notarized. It didn’t have to be an original, but I would still have to fight about that instead of Margaret’s care. Then they would ignore the POA and call her primary care doctor for his decision on whether they should let me represent Margaret. That is illegal. Once I had to demand to see the hospital’s resident agent — a signal I was going to sue — and involve Margaret’s lawyer. I had to clear all the obstacles before addressing Margaret’s care. Oh, and the second copy of the POA was my back-up because one hospital stalling tactics was to claim they had “lost” the copy I gave the ER staff. Uh huh. The floor nurses had their own set of stalling tactics, which I also had to learn how to battle to get Margaret proper care. She had multiple sclerosis and was paralyzed. Care for both those conditions is specialized and generally sucks, so I did indeed have to read the medical notes and keep a close eye on stuff I knew from experience they would neglect or screw up, like her bowel program and prevention of pressure sores.

      You know what? When my mother was dying, all my father had to do was SAY he was her husband to have full authority to make her medical decisions when she could no longer do so. He did not have to produce a marriage license.

      Cynthia

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